The most heated debate of the November season is when to begin listening to Christmas music. On Nov. 1, 2021 at midnight, singer Mariah Carey, also known as the Christmas Queen, posted a viral video of her walking toward 3 pumpkins that read “It’s Not Time” while her hit “All I Want For Christmas is You” played in the background. Carey then smashed the middle pumpkin so that they read “It’s Time”, implying her stance on this debate. However, at the very end Carey also posted a disclaimer saying, “To smash that pumpkin and treat it as pie… cause we still gotta get through Thanksgiving!!!”

46.6% of the responses from a survey sent out to 73 GRHS students and faculty members agreed that they begin listening to holiday music the day after Thanksgiving. The second most popular response with 27.4% of the votes was playing Christmas music on the first day of December, and the third most popular response with 17.8% of the votes was the first day of November. 

When asked to justify the date chosen, some polled responses were, “Because I believe that Thanksgiving should not be neglected and by listening to music this early it kinda ignores that fact. Also by listening to christmas music for TWO months, you get sick of it by the time it’s actually christmas.” Another response was: “I feel like holiday music is unrealistic/too idealistic for me. It gets me into the spirit, but if I start listening too early then I feel like I’m just sitting around waiting for the holidays.”

However, some other responses disagreed with their peers. For example, one person said that they listen to Christmas music earlier, “so the holiday season lasts longer” or that “It’s never too early for holiday music”. 

Generally, Nov.1 marks the first day that it becomes somewhat acceptable to listen to holiday music. A few radio stations begin playing Christmas music the day after Halloween, but most of them don’t until around late November or early December. I think that it seems unfair to skip right over Thanksgiving, and no one is in the holiday spirit that early. This year, early November was incredibly warm and undeniably doesn’t feel like Christmas yet. I personally think that anywhere between Thanksgiving and December is a reasonable time to begin listening to Christmas music. Usually during this time, I start listening to holiday music because that’s when the weather and the lyrics begin to correlate. 

Overall, many think that later in the season is the usual time for listening to Christmas music, but we can all agree that there’s nothing quite like holiday cheer.